Tasha Danvers, the 2008 Olympic 400 metres hurdles bronze medallist, has
announced her retirement from athletics and revealed that she attempted
suicide a year ago after suffering from depression.

The 34 year-old has been plagued by injuries in recent years and has raced only once since 2009, though she had been hopeful of returning to the track at this week’s Olympics trials in Birmingham after making encouraging progress under veteran hurdles coach Malcolm Arnold.

But an Achilles injury and has ended any comeback plans this summer and she has now decided to call time on her running career.

“It’s extremely disappointing not to be able to put myself in to contention for selection for London 2012,” said Danvers.

“Based on my training at different stages, my coach and I believed we had a genuine chance of making it, but the setbacks have been too many to overcome.”

Danvers, one of only four British track and field medallists in Beijing four years ago, also revealed how being separated from her seven-year-old son, who lives in the United States with his father, had taken a toll on her mental health.

In an interview with a Sunday newspaper, she said the separation and the constant battle with injury had led to her being treated for depression, and her illness culminated in a suicide attempt in June last year when she took an overdose of sleeping tablets.

"I just wanted to vanish,” Danvers quoted as saying in The People. “Just go up in a puff of smoke and disappear.”

Fortunately, she had called her boyfriend before drifting in to semi-consciousness and paramedics arrived at her Bath flat early enough to save her life.

Danvers said she had decided to go public with her experience because she was aware of other elite athletes who were using drugs to fight mental health problems.

"People think we just turn up at an event and that's it,” she said. “But there's so much else we have to deal with. Training, finances, injuries, relationships.”

Despite her scant competitive appearances over the last three years, Danvers received a vote of confidence from UK Athletics last autumn when she awarded Lottery funding for 2012. Head coach Charles van Commenee said

the financial award was based on positive reports on her progress from Arnold, who also coaches the men’s world 400m hurdles champion, Dai Greene.

Van Commenee said on Sunday: “We don’t have too many current Olympic medallists in our team and in an ideal world they would all be with us in London.

“Tasha knows what it takes to be competitive and make the podium, which would have been a huge advantage. Retirement is a hard decision for any athlete, but when the decision is taken out of your hands so close to an

Olympic Games it must be even tougher.”

Danvers, who also won Commonwealth silver in Melbourne in 2006 just 18 months after giving birth, said she had done everything possible to try to get to the start-line in London but her body had simply been unable to cope.

“Since winning Olympic bronze in Beijing I have made so many sacrifices to fulfil my dream of competing in London,” she said.

“Making the decision to relocate back to the UK meant leaving my seven-year-old son behind in America, which is the hardest thing in the world to do.

“But we genuinely believed I could step onto that podium again with the support of my family, Malcolm Arnold, UK Athletics, the medical team and the National Lottery, I’ve done everything possible to try and achieve

that. Sadly my body has had enough.”

Arnold, who was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for his services to athletics, said: “This is the worse possible news for Tasha, but there is no doubt she has thrown everything at trying to make

London.

“She is an Olympic medallist and that pedigree doesn’t just disappear. I was confident that if we could get her to the Games she would have been very competitive.

“This is the flip side of the Olympic dream but career-ending injuries are a fact of life at this level of sport. Our medical team have worked incredibly hard but sometimes the body knows best.”